Illusions by Aprilynne Pike is the third in a series following Laurel a Fall Faerie who has grown up in the human world. Laurel has returned to her parents house from Avalon for the start of school and is happy to be reunited with her boyfriend David. However as soon as school starts Tamani (going by Tam) enrolls at her school and makes things more complicated. Additionally a mysterious foreign exchange student who may be a faery has enrolled in school. Laurel must find out who she is while dealing with attacks from trolls who seem to dissapear when tracked.
I had mixed feelings on this book so I'm going to break this book into The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The good: I enjoyed Laurel's world, the mythology is solid and interesting. Her friends and parents are all interesting and her high school experience was fun to read. I enjoyed the book and will be reading the next in the series.
The bad: The love triangle (or quartet). Tam tries his hardest to break up David and Laurel (and Laurel continues to hang out with him alone) while simultaneously dating another girl for information. I hated the love triangle and thought Tam was unfeeling and hurtful (although Laurel didn't seem to upset about his behavior).
The Ugly: The cliffhanger. It was terrible. The book just plods along with not much action at all. Then in the last ten pages without explanation several of the characters acted totally out of character with no explanation and the reader was then left with a huge WHAT JUST HAPPENED moment (but not in a good way).
Appropriateness: This book is pretty clean. The romance is limited to kissing although a character does spend the night cuddling with another it's clear that that's all they did. There is no substance abuse or substantial violence. I'd recommend this book to readers 12+
